"This is not out of my own selfishness. Mr. Huang, you are also from Jiangxi, and you will also benefit from it."
Fang Xiaoru insisted on reform. "In all dynasties, there was a rule that only those who were born in their hometowns could not return to their hometowns to serve as officials. Only in our Ming Dynasty did officials whose hometowns were in Jiangnan not serve in the Ministry of Revenue. In all dynasties, no matter where they were, everyone paid the same taxes. Only in the Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan was heavily taxed. This is unfair. Unfair things should be changed. Now is a good opportunity to change it."
Logically speaking, there is nothing wrong with Fang Xiaoru's reform proposals. They are aimed at rectifying wrongs, eliminating discrimination, and are politically correct. However, correct things are not necessarily right.
Huang Zicheng had the opposite idea. "Yes, I am from Jiangxi. If you want to reduce taxes and eliminate the restrictions on officials from Jiangnan by the Ministry of Revenue, it will be beneficial to me. I can also pay less taxes. But Lord Fang, don't forget that everyone has selfish desires. Nowadays, most court officials are recruited through imperial examinations. Southerners have always been good at taking exams, and their number is far higher than that of northerners. Most court officials are from the south. Only the Ministry of Revenue, due to the checks and balances policy of Emperor Gaozu, is composed of officials from the north. It is the only one that stands out. Now if you want to insert southern officials, wouldn't it be artificially creating contradictions and making officials quarrel with each other
"Wrangling? Making the northern officials and the emperor alienated? Lord Fang, who would be willing to let others spit out what they have already eaten?"
"Confucius said, 'We are not worried about scarcity but inequality; we are not worried about poverty but instability. Jiangnan is rich in land and the people are wealthy. They can afford the high land tax and have been paying it for 35 years. The taxes in the north, southwest and northwest combined are not as much as those in Jiangnan. In name, it is only the unfair land tax in Jiangnan that is being cut, but in reality it will reduce the national tax revenue by at least one-fifth. Now there is a war, who will make up for the deficit? The army needs food and grass, and the officials need to be paid, all of which rely on taxes. Therefore, the Ministry of Revenue will inevitably use the method of increasing new taxes across the country to make up for the reduction of heavy taxes in Jiangnan. In other words, the deficit in Jiangnan will be made up by the people in other regions, which is a disguised tax increase. Isn't this forcing the people of the three regions to join the anti-thief Yan Wang camp?"
To put it simply, there are four sons in a family. The eldest son is the richest and pays the most, while the other three sons are poor and pay less. Suddenly, the parents say that the eldest son is too wronged, and you and the three poor brothers should pay the same amount every month.
Originally it was a good thing to turn the previous unfairness into fairness, but things in the world cannot be explained simply by adding and subtracting.
The household expenses were reduced, but the quality of life at home could not be reduced. In order to maintain the original quality of life, the parents had to divide the household expenses fairly among each son.
The eldest brother was of course happy, it was what he wanted, anyway he paid less in the end. But the three poor younger brothers were poor to begin with, and became even poorer after paying. Moreover, they had felt content with their poverty before, because eldest brother Jiangnan was lucky and owned the richest land. But now they were so poor that they were jealous, and they blamed their parents for being partial and not treating their poor son as their own sons.
Are the parents partial? No. It is absolutely fair and correct for the parents to do so. However, from the perspective of human nature, human feelings and reality, the parents' absolute fairness is a disguised form of partiality. The three poor sons will definitely alienate themselves from their parents.
Huang Zicheng spoke with great enthusiasm and every word he said made sense. Emperor Jianwen listened to him and nodded frequently.
However, Fang Xiaoru remained calm and tried to bring Emperor Jianwen into his own opinion: "Reform can never satisfy the interests of everyone and be all-encompassing. As long as it satisfies the interests of most people, it is the right reform. It is precisely because most of the court officials come from Jiangnan that I proposed to remove the threshold of the Ministry of Revenue that prohibits officials from Jiangnan from serving. In this way, I can get the support of most officials."
"We also need to reduce the heavy taxes in Jiangnan, mainly the land tax which is almost three times higher than other regions. Jiangnan is a tax-heavy region, but the land tax is not the main focus. With the support of commercial taxes and salt taxes, a slight adjustment will not be as exaggerated as Mr. Huang said. Other regions will immediately increase taxes to make up for the shortfall in land taxes in Jiangnan. Moreover, Yunnan is now stable, with new immigrants living and working there and reclaiming land. The total amount of tax revenue is increasing every year. Mr. Huang, we should be more optimistic and look at the problem from a developmental perspective."
"What's more, the capital is in Jiangnan. If the emperor reduces taxes in Jiangnan, he will definitely win the support of the people of Jiangnan. The emperor will establish prestige and win the hearts of the people, which will have an immediate effect..."
Huang Zicheng was so angry after hearing this that he jumped up and down. "Before the imperial examination system, officials were selected from filial and honest people or nobles for hereditary office. There were no poor people in the upper ranks and no nobles in the lower ranks. The hierarchy was strict. It was difficult for children from poor families to become officials. They needed to curry favor with nobles and get recommendations. Children from noble families were born officials. Didn't the promotion of the imperial examination system also cut off the interests of most officials? Why did the Sui and Tang dynasties forcibly promote the imperial examination system despite the risk of political turmoil? Wasn't it to break the aristocratic monopoly and let the most capable people take the position?"
"Lord Fang only cares about the future of southern officials. Isn't satisfying the interests of most officials the same as the officials who protected the hereditary succession of the nobility? People from the south and north are all common people of the Ming Dynasty. They all have the opportunity to become officials. Don't have prejudices based on family background and household registration. In the case of the imperial examination in the 30th year of Hongwu, the newly crowned champion was cruelly torn to pieces by a chariot. It has only been three years. Has Lord Fang forgotten about it?"
In the 30th year of Hongwu's reign, after two rounds of competition in the metropolitan examination and the palace examination, the 51 Jinshi who were finally listed were all from the south, without a single northerner.
The northern candidates who came to take the exam were not convinced and made a big fuss in the capital, claiming that the names on the gold list were changed to the southern list. They said that the examiners were partial and bent the law and bullied the northerners. How was it possible that in the imperial examinations of all dynasties, only southerners made the list
Not to mention other provinces and cities, even Shandong, the hometown of Confucius, which has been a major city for civil service examinations in the north since ancient times, did not have a single person on the list. This is unscientific.
At that time, Emperor Gaozu had less than a year to live. He was suspicious in his later years and was very skeptical about this result. He felt that the examiners this year were not good enough and must have deliberately promoted southerners and suppressed northerners. This was not good for the country's political stability. If it continued for a long time, officials would protect each other, and people from the same hometown and party would stick together. Talented people would not be able to succeed, which would inevitably lead to a political crisis.
When Emperor Gaozu saw the list of examiners, they were all southerners, and he became even more suspicious. However, the results of the imperial examination had already come out, and it was impossible to take the exam again. The imperial examination was not a joke, otherwise the court would lose all its prestige.
Therefore, Emperor Gaozu ordered Chen Zhuangyuan and other new Jinshi candidates in this imperial examination, several scholars from the Hanlin Academy and others to form a second reviewing group. Each of them selected ten people from the failed candidates and re-enrolled some candidates in order to quell the resentment of the northern candidates and settle the dispute.
However, Emperor Gaozu still underestimated how shameless scholars could be - after reviewing the papers again and recruiting new scholars, all of them were from the south, and there was not a single northerner!
This time, not only the northern candidates were angry, but even the few northern officials in the court wrote letters to express their doubts about the results of the supplementary enrollment, accusing the southerners of being biased and banding together to exclude the northerners. They said that the court is the emperor's court, not the court of you southerners.
As mentioned before, Emperor Gaozu only allowed officials from the north to serve in the Ministry of Revenue. The Ministry of Revenue was the purse of the imperial court, and everything needed money. Without funding, nothing could be done. Therefore, the overall number of northern officials was small, but their influence was not small. Never underestimate those who manage money.
Not only did the conflict not subside, but it became more and more serious, even causing division and hostility among officials.
Emperor Gaozu was furious, so he ordered Chen Zhuangyuan and others to bring the test papers of the northern candidates. He wanted to take a look at them to see if the northern candidates were so bad that they didn't even have a chance to be admitted.
Chen Zhuangyuan had just been the number one scholar for more than 20 days. As the saying goes, a newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger. He decided that since he had already done it, he might as well stick to it. After all, he was the number one scholar chosen by the emperor and became famous all over the world. No one could do anything to him.
So Chen Zhuangyuan was on his way to death and never returned. He deliberately selected a few inferior northerners' test papers and presented them to Emperor Gaozu for his review...
Although Emperor Gaozu was born into a peasant family in Fengyang who could not read or write, he had been emperor for thirty years. How could he not understand the test paper
Not only are you challenging my imperial authority, you are also insulting my intelligence!
Emperor Gaozu slaughtered almost all of the founding heroes, so why would he be afraid to kill a champion? Chen, the champion, was torn into pieces by a chariot for deceiving the emperor, and the rest were either killed or exiled, a quick and clean end.
Not only that, Emperor Gaozu cancelled the results of the imperial examination, reopened it, and personally served as the chief examiner. He set a new list of Jinshi. All of the 51 new Jinshi were from the north, without a single southerner. This list is known in history as the Southern List.
After Chen Zhuangyuan was torn to pieces by a chariot, the southern officials and candidates dared not make trouble anymore. From then on, Emperor Gaozu ordered that the imperial examination be divided into northern and southern volumes and into regional areas to ensure that the number of places on the list was relatively fair and to prevent the occurrence of northern and southern list cases again.
Huang Zicheng was born as a Tanhua scholar who passed the imperial examination. He understood very well the importance of the imperial examination to scholars. Although he was from the south, he supported Emperor Gaozu's approach to ensure the relative fairness of the imperial examination. National civil servants came from all over the country, which was conducive to national stability.
It was precisely because of Huang Zicheng's open-minded performance that Emperor Hongwu appointed him as a minister of state. Fang Xiaoru had never taken the imperial examination, but because he was a student of Song Lian, he was selected as a typical "filial and honest official", so he was not as sensitive as Huang Zicheng to the dispute between northern and southern officials.
Fang Xiaoru said: "Everyone knows about the North-South List Case. This is the result of holding power for a long time, forgetting to be proud and ignoring fairness. Therefore, the imperial examination is now divided into north and south volumes to ensure fairness. Otherwise, southerners only protect southerners, and northerners only protect northerners. The Ministry of Revenue has always been controlled by northern officials. Sooner or later, there will be a second 'North-South List Case', which is not good for the country. Therefore, reform is needed to remove the household registration threshold of the Ministry of Revenue and treat officials with northern and southern household registrations fairly."
Fang Xiaoru switched the concept, used the opponent's force to his advantage, and used a small force to achieve a great result, leaving Huang Zicheng speechless.
In fact, when it comes down to it, tax cuts and removing the household registration threshold seem absolutely fair and correct in essence, but in fact they are unfair and unreasonable proposals, which are similar to the white left-wing and hip-hop pursuit of political correctness in modern society five hundred years later.
It seems quite correct, but it deliberately ignores the selfish and evil side of human nature, which is unrealistic. However, in debates, political correctness always has the upper hand, so Huang Zicheng, who was born as a third place winner in the orthodox imperial examination, was defeated by Fang Xiaoru, a public intellectual.
Emperor Jianwen finally chose Fang Xiaoru's suggestion, which sounded very correct, to reduce the heavy taxes in the south of the Yangtze River and abolish the old rule that the Ministry of Revenue could only be controlled by northern officials.
Huang Zicheng became disheartened and became even more silent.
Emperor Jianwen issued an edict to reform the tax system overnight. In terms of taxation, he stated that "the land tax in the south of the Yangtze River should be evenly distributed" and "the tax per acre should not exceed one dou."
Regarding the personnel reform of the Ministry of Revenue, Emperor Jianwen said, "I would rather bend the national law than harm the people with the law." This means that he would rather violate the ancestral system established by Emperor Gaozu than make the same mistake again and again.
After the edict was issued, Emperor Jianwen was full of confidence and prepared to welcome the cheers from everyone from the common people to the officials.
Emperor Jianwen could never have anticipated that his hasty reforms would harm the interests of too many people and eventually lead to his own downfall and the loss of his territory.
It is said that Emperor Jianwen actively implemented the New Deal after the national mourning, and almost neglected sleep and food. Empress Ma in the harem used the excuse of taking care of the frightened prince and seldom found opportunities to talk to Emperor Jianwen.
Because of his busy schedule, Emperor Jianwen ignored his wife's changes. He only sent people to ask about Empress Ma's health and fetal movements every day. Empress Ma's answer was always two words, "very good."
At midnight, the autumn wind and rain make people depressing.
The East-West Street was still brightly lit, and bells were ringing, each ringing accompanied by a cry of “peace all over the world”.
This is the punishment of ringing the bell in the harem. The bell is rung once every hour and it will not stop until dawn.
Tonight, the identity of the palace maid who was punished was very special—she was Hu Shanwei, a fifth-rank palace maid in the Palace Bureau.
An assassin appeared at the family dinner on Mid-Autumn Festival, and the Queen Mother and Prince Heng were assassinated. Hu Shang Gong was guilty of negligence. According to palace rules, she should at least be dismissed from her post and expelled from the palace. However, Emperor Jianwen pardoned her crime and only fined her half a year's salary and required her to ring the bell for three nights, asking Hu Shang Gong to make up for her crime and make meritorious contributions.
When Empress Xiaoci was assassinated by the silkworm mother during the silkworm ceremony, Cao Shanggong, Cui Shangyi and Song Shanggong were all punished by ringing the bell.
It is impossible to hold an umbrella while holding a bell, so Hu Shanwei wore a conical hat and a waterproof straw raincoat. With all these rain gears weighing down his body, it was even more inconvenient for him to move.
Hu Shanwei followed the old path of his predecessors, saying "the balance of the world" every time he rang the bell.
It is difficult to understand the pain of lifting the bell without experiencing it personally. Hu Shanwei was not in her early twenties and was not strong and healthy. By midnight, she felt that she was almost too tired to walk and her body was shaky.
Hu Shanwei looked around and saw that there was no one around, so he quickly put the tiger eye nest candy prepared by Chen Ermei and hidden in his straw raincoat into his mouth. The sweetness replenished some energy for his body, but it was too sweet and his throat could not bear it. He still had to shout "The world is balanced", which was really uncomfortable.
Feeling thirsty, Hu Shanwei simply tilted his head back and used his mouth to catch some rain water to quench his thirst.
"Mrs. Hu."
Si Yan Haitang, who was beside Empress Ma, came over holding an umbrella and said, "The Empress wants to ask Consort Hu to come over and talk."
Hu Shanwei was shocked. "The queen is still awake so late? Is she about to give birth?"
Haitang shook her head. "The Queen said that the weather was getting colder and it was raining again. She was worried that Concubine Hu wouldn't be able to stand the punishment of ringing the bell. She asked me to find an excuse to let Concubine Hu go over and rest so that she wouldn't have to ring the bell in the second half of the night."
Hu Shanwei's heart warmed, but he said, "It was because of my negligence that the Chrysanthemum Terrace tragedy occurred. The emperor has already given me a break in the punishment. How can he abolish the rules because of me? Go back and thank the queen for her concern on my behalf."
Haitang had no choice but to go back and report. When Hu Shanwei rang the bell for the second round, Queen Ma actually came in person with her big belly in her hands!
As she was about to give birth, Empress Ma's eyes were still gentle and clear, with the simplicity and kindness unique to a beautiful girl from a small family. But now there was a hint of sadness in her eyes, which made people feel pity for her.
Empress Ma said, "The emperor's decree is effective, but my decree is useless? I am the mistress of the harem. I pardon your crime and have asked the palace justice department to exempt you from the punishment of being beaten with a bell. You can go back and rest now."
Empress Ma came with a big belly, braving the autumn wind and rain. Pregnant women are the most important. Hu Shanwei quickly said, "Yes, I obey your order."
Empress Ma came closer and whispered to Hu Shanwei, "The matter of Chrysanthemum Terrace... Concubine Hu must have known about it a long time ago. I am the only one who has been kept in the dark. I was used as a prop by the Emperor to act out a play on Chrysanthemum Terrace. Haha, I am the most stupid and naive in the entire Forbidden City. However, from now on, I will no longer be so stupid as to put myself and the child in my belly in danger."
After saying this, Queen Ma left with the support of Haitang, leaving Hu Shanwei stunned.
Hu Shanwei looked at the lonely yet strong back of Empress Ma, and gradually he felt the same feeling as the long-lost empress: Empress Ma finally became Empress Ma.
The author has something to say: I still wake up early today. After reading and leaving comments, go to bed early. Don’t stay up late~